


Heir Apparent White Epilogue

by BlackenedThorne (BlueThorne)



Series: Heir Apparent [3]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 11:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14236017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueThorne/pseuds/BlackenedThorne
Summary: Credo and Nero are both thick-skulled, so the boys of the rival kingdom have some work to do.An alternate pairing epilogue for Heir Apparent. Will likely be confusing without having read the main fic.





	Heir Apparent White Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> Had a lot of people who read Heir Apparent and were really steeped in the Dante/Nero aspects. That was the more obtuse pairing, certainly, because Dante will flirt with anything that breathes, but if I'm honest, this is the one I was really writing the whole time.  
> Also, if you read the Red Epilogue, you'll note that this one corresponds to that one because I love pining.

The first time Nero called me by my birth name, my ears rang with the displeasure of it. Hearing others use it took some getting used to, but I could not adjust to Nero’s voice speaking that name. It felt wrong.

“You can still call me Credo,” I said without a moment’s thought or hesitation.

“Oh, really?” He took it as an invitation to drop the knight act, letting the tension drop from his shoulders. Watching him try to imitate me in the role was discomforting, but he had to keep that up no matter what I might prefer. He wasn’t much of an actor, though. His fidgeting and short fuse were bound to land us on the bad side of a dignitary one of these days. For now, they were just an amusing problem.

“I suppose you’ll have to call me by my title in front of others,” I clarified, “but I’d prefer you call me Credo. It is… odd otherwise.”

He nodded, his eyes buried in their corners. “Okay, good, I thought so too. Nothing wrong with your real name or anything, but it’s too stuffy for you.”

His honesty was a gift as much as a curse. A chuckle escaped me. I’d had the name Credo far longer than I’d had my “real name,” so I was content to still hear Credo from someone. Just him would have done. Unfortunately, he must have mentioned it to Dante.

“I don’t see why he can call you Credo, but I can’t,” the irritating man said, paying no mind to the tailor trying to make him stay still for once in his life. “I mean, I kind of see why, but I think that’s a little unfair and biased.”

“This is what you called me here for?” I asked, my tone dry. “You know I have actual work to do.”

“Well, it wasn’t the only reason.” He tried to cross his arms, but the tailor pulled them back to his sides. “I wanted to know what this outfit is going to be. I feel like if I’m paying for it, I should have some say.”

“You’re not paying for it. Your father sent the funds.”

At Dante’s shrug, the tailor looked like he wanted to strangle the man with his measuring tape. “Still kind of my money,” Dante said. “I just want to make sure you’re not going to have me looking like an idiot at your fancy party.”

“I think you manage that for yourself,” I said. “Your outfit will be standard formal wear - dress shirt, vest, and slacks.” I hadn’t wanted him at the Gala, but if I had to invite the other Capulets, I had to invite him. Plus, he had pestered me for days.

“Okay, as long as you’re not putting me in the same thing as Nero.” He broke into that grin I’d learned not to trust. “But I guess you wouldn’t. You’re only making him wear that for yourself.”

I hoped my ears weren’t burning as red as they felt. After a few blinks, I managed to breathe a sigh. “Don’t be dense,” I said.

“Oh, come on, Credo.” His grin widened at my narrowed eyes. “You put him in a tailcoat. He looks adorable, and he hates it. It’s clearly not for his benefit.”

“Do not call my general such names, and do not use that name for me.”

“See? You let him call you Credo.”

“He always has!”

“So has everyone else, but you made them change.”

Before I could bite out a retort, I noticed the tailor standing there with wide eyes, glancing between us. I asked him if he’d managed to get all the measurements and dismissed him. “Enough, Dante,” I said once he was gone. “You’re imagining things just to be difficult.”

Something in his smirk replaced the humor in his eyes with a darker hue. “I’m trying to root for you here, but if you’re not going to make a move, I will.” He stepped forward and smacked a hand to my back so hard that I didn’t have the air to answer. “Good luck, Credo.”

The conversation shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have bothered me. Everything Dante said was an attempt to get under my skin, yet Nero found me once again rolling Dante’s words around in my head the night of the Gala.

“Are you mad about something?” Nero asked, leaning against the doorway. “Is it Dante again? Do I need to kick his ass? I’m always up for an excuse.”

As much as I would have liked to say yes, I couldn’t find much of anything to say when I saw him standing in his suit for the Gala. He was adorable. Dante just wasn’t allowed to say it. After clearing my throat, I found my voice again. “It’s nothing. I’m just not much looking forward to this.”

“Yeah, it was almost better when I just had to sit in a chair the whole time and watch everyone else dance. This time I get to stand and do that.”

“You look nice, though,” I said. The words seemed to fall from my mouth like an escaping thought.

“Oh.” As his eyes shot to the floor, he brushed his fingers across his nose. “Thanks. You, uh, look good too.”

My heart beat so hard that it rattled me down to my fingertips. Of course Dante was right. I’d known far longer than he ever could have that I was horribly infatuated with Nero. I’d realized about a year before, when Nero convinced me to let him go to the top of one of the towers at night. It had taken several lies and quiet footsteps to evade the guards, but when we made it out, Nero’s wide eyes reflected the stars in such a brilliant array that I wanted to stand there and stare into his eyes for the rest of the night and long beyond that.

He lay on his back across the boards, his mask off at his side, and his hands cushioning his head as he took in the night sky. “It’s like you could fall into it,” he said, too caught up in the view to pay me any mind as I took a seat at his side and watched him instead of the sky.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s strange, isn’t it?”

He fell asleep not long after, the medicine dragging him off as always. I’d carried him back to his room and tried to ignore the gnawing pit in my chest. I couldn’t love him like that because he was the prince, and the prince was to marry royalty, female royalty at that. Heirs were a requirement.

Even with our roles reversed, the situation was the same. I could not love him. I had to find a wife.

Besides, he did not love me.

The Gala was nothing but stressful. Many of the former royal bloodlines in the area had vanished thanks to the church’s meddling, so we had to reach out to families I knew nothing about. The parents of some lineages were far too eager to send daughters of ages I wanted nothing to do with. Even the girls of acceptable age were troublesome when grouped together. Their parents had likely told them to ensure they kept my attention. The pestering crowd quickly turned exhausting, even when some of the girls wore their discomfort with the situation on their faces. I was far from the only one having a rough night. Mine was just made worse every time I’d glance over to Nero to find him talking to Dante. Seeing it made my heart twist with such venomous jealousy that my vision would blur until I found something to distract myself.

Despite my attempt to act otherwise, when King Sparda asked me for a dance, I was relieved. His eyes lit up when I accepted his hand. A swell of confused murmurs surrounded us, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. If anyone asked, I would write it off as a show of good faith between the kingdoms.

“Glad we finally have a moment to talk,” Sparda murmured as the song began. He took the lead, which I had to accept. He was the senior king.

“Will you be taking your son back anytime soon?” I asked.

“I suppose that’s up to him and Nero, but you could order him away if you really wanted to.”

I couldn’t hide a flinch, and those sharp eyes of his must have caught it.

“You do want to, I’m sure,” he said. “But you are also worried about Nero, so you let Dante stay regardless.”

“There haven’t been any incidents,” I admitted. “Though I don’t care much for Dante’s training methods, they seem to work.”

The music cue called for a twirl, but I tossed Sparda a dead-eyed stare that made him laugh. “Very well, we’ll skip that,” he said. “But in return, tell me this. What do you aim to do with Nero?”

“I don’t understand,” I said, yet my voice was firm with a warning. Sparda and I were not friends nor confidants, no matter how he tried to toe at the line.

“Well, you keep glaring at my son, and while I can understand some level of irritation with Dante, he is my son.” His smile thinned, eyes darkening like Dante’s had before. “I don’t care to see ill-intent toward my son. I can see that you care deeply for Nero, and I support you in this endeavor if you wish to pursue it, but if you do not, I will not accept you being cruel to my son out of some misplaced anger.”

I could do nothing but stare at him and follow along with his steps. The Capulets were working together to kill me; I was certain of it.

“So,” Sparda began again with his usual amusement back in place. “What is your aim with Nero?”

After a few stammered attempts, I found my voice again. “I… have none. I am the king. I must find a wife.”

Sparda hummed and tilted his head as though listening to the music. “I seem to recall many of your people being rather upset when Nero stepped down from his position. They only really played along at his wishes. They’re quite fond of him.” Sparda couldn’t have possibly been suggesting what I thought he was. Capulet’s customs may have been so lax, but Fortuna would not allow it.

“Men cannot marry in Fortuna,” I said.

“You’re the king. Change the law.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Oh, but it is. The church’s power is waning since the people learned of Sanctus’s misdeeds, and it’s a rather old-fashioned law anyway. It ought to be changed.”

I hated that the demon was making sense. He must have been trying to trick me with that silver tongue of his. That was what demons did, after all. “I have to have an heir,” I said.

Still, he didn’t hesitate. My rebuttals did nothing. “Surrogates are popular, I hear.”

“The people would riot.”

He breathed a laugh. “Not if their dearest divine Nero told them not to.”

I could find no more arguments as the final chord played through the air with a swell of strings. Sparda leaned close enough for me to hear him under the sound. “You seem quite stuck in this case. Would you care for some assistance?”

“Why would you help me?” That wasn’t the right question. No, I shouldn’t have been asking anything at all. I should have been stepping back to bow so I could get away from him as fast as possible.

Yet, Sparda was the first to step back. “I do find it odd,” he said, eyes off toward the wall where I knew Nero stood. When I followed his gaze, I found Dante still there at Nero’s side, clutching a glass of wine and laughing. “My son asked me to offer you help.”

I’d never heard something so absurd in my life. That obnoxious, cursed man - _Dante_ was looking to help me. “This must be a joke,” I said as we took our bows.

But Sparda was no longer smiling when he righted himself. “He is quite attached to the little prince,” he said, “and he can tell that Nero is just as difficult and oblivious as you are. This is his wish, and I will see it through.”

I couldn’t make sense of his words, and confusion left me so stunned that Sparda had to take me by the arm to help lead me from the dance floor. I seemed to be drifting through a dream until I looked down to find a glass of wine in my hands. “Wait,” I said, blinking as I realized Sparda was walking away and dragging his ambling son off with him. “I don’t understand.”

“Do take care of him,” he called. “He’s had a bit to drink.”

My spine stiffened at the sound of Nero’s voice. “Not that much,” he said, but his words stuck and slurred together. I looked to my left to find him there eyeing the glass of wine in my hands. “Credo, you can’t drink,” he said before plucking it from my hands and taking a sip. A soft, fuzzy blush stretched from one cheekbone to the other. If their plan was just to get Nero drunk, I didn’t want the help.

“You’ve had enough,” I said, stealing the wine back. “It’s a good thing no one has tried to kill me tonight. You’re not much of a guard like this.”

His eyes went wide as his hands shot to latch onto my arm. “I would never let anyone hurt you. If someone tried to kill you, I would rip out their throat.” Holding up his glowing claws, he made a grabbing motion in the air that didn’t look threatening.

“I appreciate the thought, but you should avoid drinking so much while on the job.” Despite my words, I took a deep drink of the wine as well. No wonder he’d gotten to such a state. The wine was so stout that it dragged a few coughs out of me.

“I did not have that much,” he hissed. “But you were dancing with all those girls, and I just had to stand here, and I didn’t like it.”

I actually needed to go back to the girls. They were all hovering in a group like a flock of vultures, glancing my way for any hint that they could interrupt. As my main guests, ignoring them would be an issue, but Nero’s hand was still latched onto my arm. “Will you be alright if I leave you alone?” I asked. “Or do I need to take you back to your room?”

“I have to stay and protect you,” he said. Leaning over, he squished his cheek against my shoulder. “I will protect you like when you protected me.”

Sweet and anxiety-inducing as he was, I could not spend the whole night looking after him. I had an act to keep up, and being near him flustered me too much. Another voice to my right made my racing heart try to break out of my ribcage.

“He did get him drunk,” Vergil grumbled. “Had I not heard Father’s other plans, I would have thought this was the stupidest thing he could have done.”

As I forced myself to look at the dull-eyed prince, I realized I hadn’t seen him since the beginning of the night. After his arrival, he’d vanished, much to the disappointment of the women looking for an eligible bachelor. My guests not having to deal with Vergil’s terse attitude may have been for the best, but I would have liked to have some help in dealing with the women.

“Do I want to know this plan?” I asked.

Vergil breathed a short sigh through his nose. “Just know that we are better off with this than the alternatives. You ought to take Nero to his room before he becomes a nuisance. I expect some compensation for this.” Without waiting for a response, he stalked off toward the women, who perked up at his appearance.

“Those girls are going to have a bad time,” Nero said through a fit of giggles. “Hey, I don’t need to go back to my room. I’ve got you, and everything is okay.” He smiled, closing his eyes as though he might fall asleep against my shoulder. “Everything is okay.”

Nothing was okay. My mind was still trying to catch up. Vergil seemed to be trying to act as a distraction for me, which was insane. If that were the case, his father must have bribed him with something absurd. Vergil and I barely tolerated each other in letters. We did not aid each other. Sparda’s assistance must have been some sort of ruse, yet he’d seemed genuine. I still couldn’t comprehend what was going on with Dante.

They didn’t get anything out of this. I couldn’t find any reason for it.

Well, they got nothing out of helping me. They did care for Nero more than I would have liked, even Vergil whom I was certain would have sworn otherwise. He asked about Nero’s condition in our correspondence far too often for it to be some polite interest. In fact, he asked about Nero more than he asked about his own brother.

But giving Nero and me this odd moment together did nothing for Nero’s sake. _I_ was the one with errant feelings, not Nero. Nero gained nothing from this but a shoulder to rest on.

As I led him toward his room, he hummed one of the songs the band had played. The tune echoed through the empty halls. Like he was a child again, I kept my hand around his wrist to tug him along. “Credo,” he called. “You can’t leave me in my room, okay? I have to protect you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “If anything goes wrong, Sparda and his boys can handle it. Well, perhaps not Dante. He looked rather unsteady when we left.”

“Nope.” He must have stumbled because I found his arms around my waist. Tightening his hold around me, he pressed his face to my shoulder. “You can’t go back without me,” he said. His voice was soft and muffled in my shirt. “You can’t… go find someone else. You’re supposed to be mine, okay?”

I was trapped there in his grasp, trying and failing to pull him from me. I didn’t have the strength to put any real effort into it. My arms simply came to rest over his as I tried to force some words from my parched throat.

“Nero,” I managed at length. “I can’t-”

He released me in such a rush that in a blink, I found him standing in front of me. “You know, we should dance,” he said. His hands shook as they took hold of mine. In the moonlight from the windows, tears shone in his eyes. “I never got to at the Gala- I mean that would have been embarrassing, but we can- No, this is stupid. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Had too much to drink.” Releasing me, he took as step back and ducked his head to hide his eyes behind his bangs. His breaths came in quick gasps between rambling words. “But you can’t go back without me. I have to be there. Have to make sure no one tries to hurt you. Have to make sure you’re happy with them because if it can’t be _me_ , you have to be happy, okay?”

“My prince,” I sighed as I closed the distance between us. Cupping his face in my hands, I tilted his chin up to find his eyes once more. Tears poured down his cheeks and soaked into my gloves. “Please do not cry.” Not for me. I’d cried over him so many times, but I could not allow him to do the same for me. That wasn’t right.

“But I hate it,” he said. His attempt to wear his usual scowl wobbled. “It hurts, and I hate it.” He clenched the fabric over his heart into a fist. “I hate them. They don’t care about you. _I do_.”

I understood. Finally. Like a foreign language had found meaning to my ears, I realized the meaning of every word, every glance - Dante’s, Sparda’s, and Nero’s. My chest ached in the same empty pang that he must have felt.

“I would never be happy with any of them,” I said. “I don’t want any of them. I can be king to everyone else, but I will always be your knight, as you are still my prince.” As I brushed my thumb against his cheek, I wished I wasn’t wearing gloves so I could feel the softness of his skin and the warmth of his blush. “If you were to allow me to remain yours forever, I would. My heart has always been yours.”

His eyes were wide with awe and shining with tears that had yet to fall, just like when he’d caught all the stars in his gaze. When he sniffled, I couldn’t help but smile and press my forehead to his. “You are drunk, my dear,” I murmured. “This is not the best time for confessing, or perhaps it is.”

“I love you when I’m sober too!” he gasped, and the hollow ache in my chest became a burning warmth. I shouldn’t have kissed him then, not with how much he’d been drinking, but my lips pressed to his before I could think. He responded with a hum, his fingers curling into the collar of my shirt to drag me closer even when I pulled away. His breaths were deep yet quick. “Can we do that again?” he murmured, his nose brushing mine as he tried to close the gap once more.

“I think we should wait ‘til you’re sober,” I said even as my thumb traced his lower lip. He was making this difficult, but he made everything difficult. I wouldn’t have expected anything less of Nero. “I don’t wish to make any regrettable decisions.”

“No fun,” he sighed. “But if I’m still your prince, can’t I give you orders?”

At my laugh, he smiled along with the sappy adoration of a man who’d had too much to drink. “I will allow one drunk order,” I said.

“Then kiss me again.”

“As you wish, my prince.”

**Author's Note:**

> Me sitting alone in my fandom of this pairing: "My booyyyyss."


End file.
